


mind junk

by toocoldforyouhere



Category: Original Works, Poetry - Fandom, poem - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Original Works - Freeform, Poems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:59:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toocoldforyouhere/pseuds/toocoldforyouhere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>these things written in here came from my brain</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. abuse

**Author's Note:**

> all poems are mine and only mine unless stated otherwise.  
> please do not reproduce any works of mine in any way, shape, or form unless you have my specific consent and I am credited (as l.j.h. or toocoldforyouhere).  
> thank you.

you nailed me to the wall by my throat  
hammering in every mistake I have ever made and  
in that moment I saw through your  
unapologetic eyes myself not as I was but  
who you believed me to be

and so I choked out your name  
and made a blood ridden promise and  
you cringed at the sound and  
cried the world another ocean and  
peeled the skin from your knuckles and

I was tired of watching so  
I ripped the nail from my throat and  
swam through your tears and  
the salt stung my wounds but  
I was free

you only felt powerful when I  
was on my knees and  
as I stood the floorboards spoke your agony in  
sighs and  
moans and  
whispers

you miss my lips and  
my hands and  
you wish you had tattooed your name with insecurities on my skin so 

I could never live without them, or you,  
but I left before you had the chance and I learned to be on my own and  
now you find it hard to breathe.

l.j.h.


	2. untitled

i drank myself into every poem and  
giggled myself out of every memory and  
pretended it didn't hurt until  
it didn't anymore

l.j.h.


	3. the egyptian

she's made of hieroglyphics,  
hates pet names and tells the bartender –  
“honey, sweetie, sugar pie, you'd better keep your hands to yourself.

this ain't no drag show –  
no failure,  
showing the worth of running into things.”

she hates the sound of metal on metal,  
wakes up thinking she is holding a rear view mirror,  
the only thing salvaged from the wreck,

“the one in '73  
that made everything quiet with a screech,”  
she says –  
“even the birds in milwaukee don't shit after 5 pm,  
and everyone falls silent out of need  
not to remember.”

she holds the bar stool like a steering wheel,  
this white knuckle photo album  
she tries to forget

she tells me –  
“you're better off sleeping through it, kid,  
or maybe you aren't.”

she is a tangled mess of tired dreams,  
a queen of glass and sand and denial,

she's got sharpened nerves,  
says not everything's gonna hurt  
but hopes it does

she is all shattered glass,  
built like a gas chamber,  
she often says she loves to forget,  
she doesn't.

she can't but has to sleep with the tv on,  
enjoys cold sheets and hates logic,  
she says –  
“you know,  
I have dreams about ex lovers  
falling asleep with their heads in plastic bags.”

she made me and the bartender uncomfortable,  
laughed at our unease and told me  
that I should take notes,  
told me to dig in the closet of silence for closure.

her voice was like duct tape,  
she held her drinks like candles in the dark and  
made the air surrounding us tight as a noose.

mama said there'd be days like this.

l.j.h.


	4. die sister die

(for my mother)

every car crash happened in 1978  
and twenty years later,  
I was born  
the collision of my bare body into  
the doctor's gloved hands reminded  
my mother of her own existence

every car crash happened in montana  
snow covered streets two days before christmas  
volkswagon wheels screeching across the tarmac  
ice slowing everything down just as it began to speed up  
and it was colder that day than on any other  
blue eyes reflecting the paleness of her mother's veins,  
light on the skin of her mother's arm

twenty years later,  
hips rocking upwards as I screeched into the world,  
my mother wondered why meth and montana and mother start with the same letter  
why I was screaming so loud  
why my father was still there  
why she felt dizzy,  
drifting in and out  
I heard it was an easy delivery,  
or maybe that was my brother

I started out screaming  
but grew to shut up  
stopped vomiting when my mother left the room  
she hasn't stopped thinking about the letter m,  
it hasn't fully left her mind,  
but it has escaped parts of her body  
and I guess that's why she named lillian and not  
millie millie sounds too much like 'mistake' anyway

every car crash happened in 1978  
every wreck thereafter can be linked to  
bad decisions and  
bad eyesight  
every time my mother thinks of me,  
my heart hurts and  
every time I think of her  
she smiles.

l.j.h.


	5. blue pen, cursive scroll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wrote this for my friend who's sister tragically committed suicide.  
> RIP Kara.

you left me a note.  
it's all I have because  
going into your room or  
looking at your pictures   
is often too much but I keep the note.

you wrote sorry more times than I care to count,  
scribbled down excuses and begged for forgiveness,  
I can't forgive you for leaving me.

you are still my best friend.  
replacing you is impossible,  
my dear sister,  
the note is all I have left of you because  
going into your room or  
looking at your pictures  
is too much.

I love you,  
the first and last line,  
it started out with   
'dear baby brother, I love you'  
you didn't love me enough to tell me you were hurting   
you didn't love me enough to say goodbye in person.

and this note,  
this morbid farewell,  
this last moment,  
this note is everything.

this note is   
the hug before bed,  
the kiss on the forehead,  
the drive to mcdonalds,  
the surprise party for mom,  
the “I love you, goodnight.”  
the “you're a great brother.”  
the “brandon is such a dick.”

this note is  
sandcastles  
flower crowns  
fights  
dinner  
video games  
losing  
losing you.

you left me a note,  
left me a memory,  
left me a brokenhearted mother,  
a closed door,  
a rope.

it's all I have because  
going into your room or  
looking at your pictures   
is often too much but I keep the note.

my dear older sister,  
I wonder why you thought I was strong enough to throw it away.

you left me a note,  
and I guess it's better than leaving nothing at all.

l.j.h.


	6. untitled

I have realized the profoundness of my own mortality and I will eat your children.

l.j.h.


	7. orange is the new black

after four am,  
my house always smelled like cigarettes  
two years into my sister's teenage beginnings  
she knew how to roll a blunt  
forwards and  
backwards  
it is a party trick

my sister sits on the patio,  
dropping ashes into the pool,  
the same pool that we swam in as children  
she taught me how to swim  
now she teaches me indifference

when my sister turned seventeen,  
she dyed her hair white  
to symbolize her nicotine addiction  
I thought it was funny  
I thought it was stupid  
the same girl who taught me how to ride a bike  
had a nicotine addiction so strong that she dyed her hair to symbolize it

my sister has an addictive personality  
when we were younger, it was chewing gum  
or candy floss  
or field hockey  
now,  
it's cigarettes  
it's needles  
it's thrill  
it's flying higher,  
it's going to outer space  
my sister has an addictive personality  
she is addicted to addictive things

my sister loves me very much  
she used to read me poems  
she used to cook me breakfast  
my sister was my mother and my best friend  
my sister opens herself wide  
peels back the layers of her skin  
and smiles brightly at family gatherings  
her eyes have dark circles looming under them  
her cheeks are so hollow,  
hollow like her drunken apologies when she calls me  
my sister is open wide,  
her eyes empty of anything but wanderlust

my sister loves me very much,  
but not as much as she loves drugs  
and I love my sister  
more than I love myself  
more than I love the stars in the sky  
more than I love tattoos  
more than I love the color blue  
I love my sister so much  
that I drive three hours to see her  
to see her locked inside a prison,  
lost in herself,  
losing herself

my sister shuts down  
her hands shake when she speaks to me  
she closes her eyes and  
stutters

my sister taught me how to swim  
she taught me how to ride a bike  
she taught me how to make spaghetti  
and  
she taught me how to lie

my sister thinks blackness symbolizes sin  
yet black is the color her eyes turn when she is angry  
I wonder if she ever feels angry when she misses me  
or whenever she thinks of how much I miss her

my sister is a tornado  
she carves a path for herself  
she doesn't care what gets uprooted while she is on her way  
my sister thinks blackness symbolizes sin  
but she is a black force when she destroys us

my sister tells me that  
in prison, everyone is on the inside  
she tells me that  
she has a prison wife  
she tells me that  
she is still addicted to heroin  
that she will never not be addicted to heroin  
that her prison wife gets her heroin from the sewers

my sister loves me very much,  
but she loves smelling like shit more.

my sister is not my sister  
this girl,  
dressed in orange,  
with frenzied fingers  
and starlit eyes  
this is not the same girl  
who taught me how to swim  
how to ride a bike  
how to cook spaghetti  
who covered my ears when my parents fought  
who told it wasn't my fault that my father left  
who told me that being gay isn't a sin  
who told me that true love isn't letting someone hurt you so they'll stay  
who tucked me in at night  
who read me poems by robert frost

my sister is not my sister  
this girl,  
dressed in orange,  
is a stranger

and yet,  
I still say I love you when I go  
my sister is not my sister but my sister lives within her.

l.j.h.


	8. is

my body is my body  
is my pain  
is my vessel  
is the world's perception of me  
is my perception of the world  
is my sin  
is my weight  
is my reality  
is part of me  
is not me  
is not definable  
is defined  
is broken  
is bruised  
is hurting  
is waiting for relief  
is craving death  
is begging  
is taking the life out of me  
is my life  
is who I am  
is not who I am  
is the reason I am alive  
is destroying me  
is keeping me tethered to you  
is beautiful  
is ugly  
is disgusting  
is a waste of a body  
is nothing  
is everything I have  
is my body  
is


	9. bullshittin'

hey,  
I never expected you to knock my teeth out

you made it rain to drown out the noise in your head  
you kept saying, "sinners are as sweet as licorice on warm summer nights..."  
with your mouth turned down and your eyes turned up  
I said nothing,   
lost in my own delirium

oh, God.  
it's sexy when you smoke  
give me a little nicotine kiss, baby  
one, two, four seconds of bliss   
(before my lungs collapse)

love me while you break your bones

the best sex leaves bruises, you tell me  
the worst nights leave scars, I tell you  
neither of us know the difference, anyway,  
so why are we talking about it?

click, click  
glass against my bones,  
the sound of it keeps us both awake  
you fidget, but I am still,  
still waiting for the sound to stop,   
still sinking into the illusion of your beauty

oh, how lovely it is to watch the light leave your eyes  
you say, "everything is all the same,  
all the fucking time --  
the same sameness in this town  
drives me fucking crazy."

"have a smoke," I say

we are both unoriginal and  
unforgiving

click, click, baby  
there's glass in my skin, or --  
is that a tooth?  
oh well.

"let's kill ourselves, baby." I say,  
and I suppose I sound the same as ever --  
insipid,  
uncaring,   
bored.

you laugh,  
"we already are."  
there's life in the old one yet!

(fuck, I wish I loved you.)


	10. sacrifices

and just who were my people?

were my people the wings?  
or were they the bony legs,  
trembling at the precipice?

my people,  
victims of my passion,  
my charisma,  
my charm.  
my people shall be free,

so now turn away as I unzip my skeleton for them,  
and listen not when I whisper:  
"oh, how hard I loved you,  
how I wrote your names in blood,  
how the blood was my own."

my people become shapes,  
shapes shifting at night,  
shapes twisting my perception and  
bending time.

they left me,   
my people,  
they left, crying out,  
calling me loveless and godless and a creature that stains the day

so it seems it was not my blood I had written in, after all.


	11. shit talking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everything I write is bad

they say,  
"baby, you've lost your boom,  
you lost your spark,  
everything you did was banging,  
you was cooling,  
and you was cool when we was hanging,  
but baby,  
you're different now.  
you're so quiet.  
you used to laugh and riot with us,  
now you sit just sit back and listen,  
well, baby,  
we're sorry, but we don't wanna kick it no more,  
not when you can't even pretend to smile for a minute,  
and no,   
we don't want you to be fake, but get with it,  
and if you can't, we just can't dig it."

I say,  
"baby, I don't have the heart to be a firecracker,  
all the fire I had burning,  
it burned out,  
and I can't be banging if I can't remember how,  
I'm still cooling, I'm still cool,  
I just feel different,  
don't have much to say, I'm sorry.  
I like listening because it fills the silence,  
for a minute I'm not alone,  
but, hey.  
we don't have to kick it no more, no.  
and baby, I've been faking it for a minute and I'm just struggling to keep up with it,  
and if you want me to be real,  
well. this is as real as it gets.  
don't dig it, then, baby.  
go ahead and drop it, love.  
I can't force it,  
I won't even try.  
I don't need you anyway."


	12. a small divide

"look up pretty ways to describe a wine stain on a white carpet," she says. "I just can't seem to get it right."

I laugh, and Google:

"how to make a fucking wine stain sound significant"

(she doesn't want pretty, really. she likes profoundness.)

I give her some examples, she writes a poem.

(admittedly, it's good, but when you remember that all she's talking about is a wine stain, and when you remember that all the metaphors she used were plucked from someone else's brain, it dulls a little. I don't tell her that.)

"look up the Latin word for penetration," I say. "I need it for a thing I'm doing."

she frowns, but does what she's told. the word is penetratio, and I think I like it just a little less than the English counterpart.

"why do you always write about that?" she asks.

I want to say,  
"why do you search for meaning in something so simple as a goddamn wine stain?" but I've been sober for a while, so I smile and just tell her that it's significant to me.

she doesn't understand, but she nods, translates a few more things for me.

"you focus too much on it," she tells me one day.

(I was writing about his eyes and the only words I could think of to describe them were "cold" and "blue" and "predatory".)

"maybe you should let it go. forgive him."

maybe you should stop searching for life's great answers in things that mean nothing.  
maybe you should stop trying so fucking hard to be deep and poetic.  
maybe you should stop fucking trying.  
I think this all to myself. I'm still sober, see.

"I have forgiven him," I lie. the inside of my mouth tastes bitter. "writing about it is the only way I can cope."

she nods, but she doesn't understand. what's new?

"look up synonyms for 'crack'." she says.

"why?"

"I want to describe cracks in the sidewalk."

"in relation to?"

"nothing, Lillian." she's irritated with me again. "just cracks in the sidewalk."

I feel like there is a crack in the sidewalk,  
and we are standing on opposite sides,  
a small divide between us,  
always keeping us at a distance,  
but I don't tell her that.


	13. love you, baby.

my intention was not to sell my soul,  
but I laid with the devil and that was enough  
to lose it all.

sense of humanity dead,  
sense of self long lost -  
the other girls and I wait for our train home with  
wide  
vacant  
eyes.

we stare out the window at  
Him -  
he smiles in our direction,  
his eyes burning with the light of us,  
stolen fire,  
hell’s games.

assimilating into the real world,  
that’s the hardest part  
after having the life drained out.

the girls and I,  
we don’t speak with words,  
but in our thoughts,  
we cry –  
“oh, how hard it is to pretend,  
how hard it is to act as though we are human still,  
rather than hollow shells  
of women.”

the river of deceit  
now flows within me  
and them  
and by this,  
we are all connected to  
Him.

I heard Mary killed herself  
to escape  
the damage he had left  
and us girls,  
we laughed.  
“escape? She just fed right into His hands.”  
we laughed,  
we laughed,  
we laughed,  
and pretended we weren’t afraid to die.


	14. Chapter 14

once when I spoke,  
my tongue gave birth to a black hole  
they all stared at me,  
cold eyes that looked like glass,  
vacant but unsurprised

I do not own the sickness,  
do not know the sickness;  
I am the sickness,  
and they all know it

the black hole stuck around  
I didn't  
when I spit it out,  
I lost it,  
and by it I mean the last semblance of sanity I had

now there's nothing left, see?  
once despaired, once sad, once even joyful  
now I am nothing but the numb  
nothing but the sickness

they all know that the longer they are near me,  
the more likely they are to become ill,  
and probably die,  
so they keep their distance  
but beyond the numbness there is need to find  
people like me,  
or to create them,  
so beyond the numbness is selfishness,  
and I infect as many people as I can

eventually the sick loiter in numbers  
before the numbness comes they are often  
angry with me for shoving my hands down their throats and pulling them apart 

but when the nothing comes they are often  
thankful for me and my presence  
I guess misery really does love company  
we creep around,  
hiding in alleyways,  
and we pollute other people 

black holes fill this town now  
and some of us have disappeared into them  
they're the lucky ones, I think  
and the ones that aren't dead or missing or ill  
still look at me with the eyes of fish,  
and in cold whispers,  
they say,

"he does not own the sickness,  
he does not know the sickness;  
he is the sickness  
and we all know it."


	15. my ol' lady and me

She  
grits her teeth and grips the edge of the table  
“love is fucking dead!” she wails.  
To laugh is to hurt.  
I purse my lips.  
“when’s the last the time you were sober?” I ask her.  
She  
sneers and shakes her head.  
it’s violent.  
It must hurt her neck.  
Her eyes roll back and she looks  
absolutely mad.  
“sobriety is for –  
for –  
fuck, doesn’t matter.  
I ain’t been sober in a while.  
don’t test me, boy,  
I’m in one hell of a mood.”  
I ain't been sober in a while,  
either,  
and she knows that.  
the way I've been twitching,  
jerking around,  
frantic.  
she sucks the snot into the back of her head,  
swipes her hand over her mouth,  
flings the door to the refrigerator open –  
my nose curls up –  
pulls out her last beer.  
She is ever graceful,  
popping the top off with her teeth and  
slurping until the bottle is empty,  
ending this small tirade with a belch.  
She  
chucks some bills in my direction and tells me  
to go get some more of her go go juice before  
she lies down on the cold floor.  
I,  
the enabler,  
I pick up her shit beer  
(budweiser, the tasteless bitch)  
“love is fucking dead!”  
I’m singing to myself as I walk on back,  
giggling to myself every few steps.  
Sobriety is for fools and dreamers,  
she meant to say.  
A fool she is, a dreamer am I.  
A drunkard she is, a junkie am I.  
Well,  
I think we’re meant to be.  
Even though love is dead.


	16. fishbowl

they tap on the glass,  
we tap back  
mouths open wide to scream,  
to cry,  
only to realize,   
again,   
that we have no voice.


	17. Chapter 17

barely there –  
a familiar set of words to me,  
because it is how most would describe me   
when they look underneath the surface of  
crystal smiles and bouncing laughter and eclectic tastes  
is me,  
only existing because it’s what I’m supposed to do  
only holding on because I was told to.  
I feel like the shell of someone who may have never existed.


	18. Chapter 18

do you think death  
lurks around the   
corner?  
does he wait for us?  
does he love us?  
do you think death  
wants us to live?


	19. Chapter 19

I feel carnal craving cock

like I am right now

want someone to throw me around

yank on my hair and bruise my ass

I want to feel a man for days after we've fucked

I've been chasing it all day flirting with older,

attractive men and I really only like

_men_

they are as dirty as me

  
so anyway

  
I winked and giggled and said

  
suggestive things to good looking men

  
and now I am lying in bed,

  
yearning.


	20. Chapter 20

sometimes   
at work  
while people dig in their   
purses, or wallets, or pockets  
I rip the bill they handed me,  
just a little  
it's a silly thing to do  
but it keeps me from screaming  
at these poor people  
who don't understand the monotony of the lives they are living  
it keeps me from screaming  
about how badly I crave a drink  
or a high  
some other state of mind  
my coworkers have started to notice, I think.


	21. Chapter 21

my grandmother  
(the dead one)  
once said  
"you march to the beat of your own drum"  
well,  
if only she was here now,  
to listen to the mad banging in my chest  
maybe she would still say that I marched  
to the beat of my own drum,  
but I think she would no longer be proud


	22. Chapter 22

I feel as though I am  
engulfed in flames  
and quietly dying  
my veins pulse  
I listen to the quaint  
small talk   
of other people  
and I wonder if they can sense   
me,   
burning alive  
waiting for it all  
to  
finally be over


	23. Chapter 23

I crawl  
deeper down the rabbit hole  
the walls  
suffocate me  
but if I just reach  
the bottom  
I'll be free

I'm digging  
clawing at the earth  
God damn  
I want this so bad  
but I keep getting stuck  
and I have so much farther to go.


	24. Chapter 24

I wish you had   
loved me  
when you were sober.  
I remember once,  
you did.  
but when you met the bottle,  
she won your affections.  
for a while,  
you still fucked me,  
and rolled away when you were done,  
but then you simply stopped touching me,  
preferred the taste of rum.

sometimes,  
while you were sleeping,  
I'd memorize your face.  
I felt like I was living in a wasteland,  
and I wanted to run away.  
but,  
in the morning,  
before you took to drinking,  
you would beg me to stay.

well.  
I've never been good at saying no,  
so I didn't pack my things.  
but,  
I wanted freedom,   
and I wanted to be saved.  
I wanted to smash  
the bottle,  
and leave the pieces for you to   
pick up.

I loved you always, but.  
you only really loved me  
when you were sober.


End file.
